A Vision of the Aquarian Age Sir George Trevelyan First published in 1977 by Coventure UK and in 1984 by Stillpoint USA This book is out-of-print, now available only on this website

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14  Man Attuned – The Hope for the Future


IT IS EASY to dismiss all we have said as so much airy idealism. What is its relevance, one might ask, in a world full of discord and dismay? As realists preoccupied with the population explosion, rising crime rates, violence, world famine and inflation, have we time for escapism into high-sounding ideas about the spirit? Perhaps this very understandable attitude is itself a form of escapism, a shuttering of our vision lest we be confronted with truths too tremendous, too intensely piercing to face. The fact is that many people fear the spirit. In it, they sense a power which can transform lives and burn away the dross of egoism to which they cling. And they shrink from the refining fire. Nevertheless, we are beginning to awaken to the extraordinary living forces permeating our lives and, according to our nature, we either accept it with joy and excitement or flee from its implications.

In either case, the effect is immediate and empirical. For as we said in our first chapter, we are not talking about some vague spiritual metaphysics, but the reality of living spirit working from the invisible planes, which can break through into our temporal sphere and transform human lives. The Great Oneness calls all its errant parts to blend and harmonise again within the pattern of the whole. Human self-will has drawn us away, and the confusion of our time demonstrates where separation has led us. To cooperate voluntarily with the transforming impulse is the great hope and challenge for man's future. The free and dedicated consciousness of evolved mankind is the instrument through which a new society and a new world is to be formed, for God needs man as much as man needs God. It is a new heaven as well as a new earth that is coming to birth.

Through meditation in the broadest sense, we can help establish the bridgehead. Though he is but a tiny unit in himself, man meditating is performing a deed of cosmic significance. We have imaginatively seen that each is a fragment of an immense whole. We are each responsible for releasing either jets of doubt and despondency into the body of earth, or for allowing an influx of light and courage. Since, as channels and conductors, we are endowed with free will, the light simply cannot penetrate unless we allow it to do so. Our awakening and our invocation make its entry possible. By each meditation, we align with a universal process. We have performed a willed deed which holds back the clamour of the world and creates a vortex point of stillness through which harmony and love can descend. Man is the catalyst that can allow the redemptive event to occur, so that the spirit can impregnate the body of earth. The transformation of man begins in ourselves and no one is too small or unimportant. The thinking of the heart is the field of action for the Higher Self. The whole reclaims the particle and re-unites it in attunement with itself.

Change man and you change society. Try to change society without the inner change in man, and confusion will be the sole result. And each conscious individual is solely responsible for making changes in himself. One basic spiritual law is that for each step into higher knowledge, a man should take three steps in development of his own character. This, when correctly implemented, protects against dark occultism that seeks personal power.

Lovingness, the power of spirit, can never stagnate. The heart, lighted by love, will radiate outwards, and the light will unite with itself in others. With joy, recognition will ensue, and groups will form by the attraction of mutual affinity. There is no bond like that of spiritual understanding, for it unites people of every type and age. It is the real social solvent.

And so new groups form, dedicated to the service of the spirit. These seed groups, contacting each other, are the matrix of a new society into which the power and quality of the spirit can work down into every aspect of daily life. It is, as we have emphasised before, a new society forming within the heart of the old. Perhaps it is building the new Ark to carry us safely through the deluge!

LET LIGHT AND LOVE AND POWER RESTORE THE PLAN ON EARTH

The groups we have mentioned form from individual souls who have been touched by the divine power, and who, through their own inner initiative, have tuned into it and accepted it. And such groups are appearing in many and varied forms. There are many meditational and healing groups which, though small, are learning a task of immense significance. There are the youth communes, many of which very naturally turn back to a simplification of life by renewed proximity to the living soil. It is clear that, with the impending prospect of world famine, man must learn to feed himself by organic husbandry on his own plots of land. "Il faut cultiver nos jardins". This brings with it a way of life that revives personal creativity through the need to do and make all that is needed. Living the Good Life, a book by Scott Nearing which describes one of the first such ventures in America, is most important in this respect. It provides a model for the small group which opts out of the "rat-race" to re-establish a genuine contact with nature.

But the new society, of course, must be able to tackle much broader problems; it is by no means only a return to simple living on the land. It must be prepared to make use of all the advantages of modern invention and technology, all the aids to living offered by a contemporary urban society. What has gone wrong with our culture is not its technical ingenuity, but the fact that it rests on a foundation of sell-aggrandisement, voracious possession and accumulation. In contrast, the new culture will be based on what we can give to the whole, not what we can take from it. The art and mystery of giving must be relearned on all levels. Then we shall discover that abundance is infinite and that there is indeed enough for all.

Certain larger centres are in fact demonstrating how the living spirit can sift down into every aspect of daily life. Such a centre is Auroville, near Pondicherry, founded on the continuing inspiration of the great seer Aurobindo. Here, a new age city is being built and the new laws applied in all aspects of the economy, all patterns of social relationship. In our country, perhaps the most striking example of a new age community is Findhorn. Here, in the north of Scotland, is a centre which demonstrates the creative possibilities of the new age. It offers an indication of the way the living spirit can work through a human group. We have already described in an earlier chapter how, in cooperation with the nature spirits and the beings of the elemental world, Peter Caddy, founder and custodian of Findhorn, transformed a barren waste of sand dunes into a wonderful garden. But Findhorn is far more than a garden. It is a rapidly growing community wholly dedicated to the service of the whole. The area, a one-time caravan site, is now a veritable village, whose healthful and beneficent influence will radiate out into the entire region – and indeed, much further. It is a creative experiment in group living in which every member of the community gives to the full of his talents, every department contributing to the harmony of the whole and all concerned primarily with realising the spirit on Earth. In 1962, Findhorn began with Peter Caddy's family and a friend. Now the community numbers two hundred permanent members. And as it expands further, the direct daily guidance on which it was founded has been deliberately withdrawn, so that each may learn to rely on his own inner guidance by attunement to the Higher Sell.

Findhom now calls itself a University of Light. Every aspect of its work is a facet of its educational vision. It has demonstrated the truth that in the spirit is abundance. Where the human will is wholly given to the realisation on earth of the divine and where the self is attuned to the unity of life, inner intuitional guidance begins to work. It is revealed that the spirit will always meet the needs of those who serve it. Where the egoism, doubt and desire of the lower sell are truly surrendered, needs will be satisfied. What is called the Law of Manifestation is being demonstrated at Findhorn. It holds the key to an economic revolution. In a new age society, the attitude to money will change drastically. We will come to see it as a means by which spiritual energy is facilitated in its flow.

The task of the new age community and groups is to allow the spirit to flow freely and creatively. All the clutter of outdated habits, possessions and thoughts must go, and life be simplified enormously. Then, as Findhorn attests, every aspect of life takes on a creative and even artistic quality, for quality is spirit, spirit quality. In the garden at Findhorn, in the cooking and preparation of meals, in the gatherings in the Sanctuary, in the flow of human contacts between both members and visitors, in the crafts and performing arts and in the recreational activities – everywhere, the joy of service to the whole manifests itself in quality and high artistic standards. Where people with artistic gifts make a genuine breakthrough in consciousness into the higher planes, it is natural that they should express this breakthrough artistically. Sir Donald Tovey defined genius as "the most effective channel for the creative source". The spiritual world view surely offers the greatest inspiration for literature, painting, music, sculpture and all other arts. It is the eternal theme of Man seen vitally and freshly. We might almost prophesy a new renaissance, as more and more artists blend consciousness with the higher worlds of creative Ideas. There will then be new need and inspiration to express the vision in artistic symbolism. Living Ideas will play again through creative man in new forms of fresh expression.

This, too, is occurring at Findhorn. At the same time, there is also an increasing interest in a revival of the crafts. The conviction of the sacredness of all life and the divinity latent within all material intensifies the significance of craft work. Delight in the creation of quality through long and patient treatment of beautiful material can again become the motive, particularly when the work is undertaken on behalf of the whole in a dedicated community. The mentality involved is akin to that which obtained, for example, in the illuminated texts produced by medieval monasteries.

Eventually, all aspects of daily life tend to take on something of a sacramental quality. Ritual naturally revives, and new rituals are created to celebrate special occasions and to mark the festivals of the year. These are often filled with a note of joy so characteristic of new age activities. Direct intuitive inspiration opens the possibility of a new ritual form, burgeoning with significance. And it brings a new meaning into the old rituals as well, as described in Mary Fullerson's book about the Eucharist, By a New and Living Way.

Findhorn is a particularly interesting and challenging example of the vital working of the new age impulse. It is but one example. We cannot, of course, do justice here to the breadth of the movement in Britain, America and other parts of the world. But once we acknowledge that energies from the invisible planes are at work in human consciousness, we will recognise the astonishing scope and variety in their present manifestations. New enterprises are continually springing up, new groups and ventures coming to birth. There are schools of meditation, centres for healing by the new therapies, colleges for study in the great traditions, seed groups for workshop study of the economic and social problems in the light of spiritual knowledge, religious movements which allow the wind of the spirit to blow, and much more besides. No one has a monopoly of the truth, since the emerging picture is of such vast extent. There may be differences of interpretation, but no one in any way touched by this spiritual resurgence can doubt that something of immense significance is happening. It looks as if the activity of the spirit, working through human enterprise, is seeking to display itself in very diverse forms and characters, so that no human soul will remain untouched by the new vision and denied opportunity to respond. And as the various movements coalesce and learn to work together, a most powerful united front will be presented, through which a pattern for the future can emerge. In this light is the hope for man's future, and it is bright indeed.

It becomes brighter still if we remember that we are not alone. Among the most significant of new age ideas – one to which we have alluded many times in these pages – is that of the invisible guides who help direct our destiny. If this idea is indeed valid, it extends the utmost encouragement for living forwards into the unknowable new. Most of us have experienced events which appear to have been strangely and ingeniously planned, and which cannot, we feel, be explained away by coincidence. These events can be ascribed to our spiritual guides, and, if we admit their existence in our own lives, we must acknowledge it in everyone else's. If a pattern reveals itself in small happenings, there must be a great web of direction influencing all lives, and national evolution as well. Once we learn to live into this idea, it will afford immense inner strength, and enable us to overcome the bugbear of doubt. Our inner evolution, as indicated by the Grail Knights in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, is to move from "Dullness" into "Doubt" and, from there, to "Security of Soul" or "Steadfastness of Thought". "Dullness" implies the crudely sensual life devoted solely to physical satisfaction. "Doubt" is the stage to which most of us have evolved. "Saelde" – security or blessedness of soul, is the stage we shall attain as the thinking lifts to contact the life of the Higher Self. This is the true Grail Quest for our time.

Civilisation, in the true sense of that word, is now at a low ebb, but the possibilities of transformation are greater than ever before as the New Age dawns and the new energies flow. The signs are manifest in the new groups and centres we have de scribed. The great revolution – and revelation – of our time is the reality of the living oneness of Being, now breaking through into our time-ridden lives. Evil, a very real force, is but the negative aspect of these energies. Once we grasp this, we can look up with joyful expectancy as we await the changes that even now are sweeping through our world.

The New Age centres are all parts of a great pattern. Research into lost knowledge now discloses how our forebears were sensitive to those points on the surface of the earth where magnetic power and spiritual light were especially active. They constitute vortices through which the etheric forces can impregnate the earth. Sensitives have found that, on these points, meditation and prayer are particularly effective, and contact with the higher worlds is particularly blessed. On such sites, there fore, temples and churches were established, to both signify and guard them. The sanctuaries and sacred groves of the Greek and Roman world indicated similar points of attunement with the invisible planes.

With the heightening of faculties of perception and the palpable thinning of the veils between planes of being, these ancient centres are being rediscovered and reactivated. Not infrequently, new age groups or ventures are unconsciously drawn to such sacred points and establish themselves there. Some sites have generated the closest modem approximation to medieval pilgrimages. We must visualise, then, a veritable net work of light linking the groups who are dedicated to the service of the spirit. It may be likened to a great grid system on an etheric level. When the moment arrives for the throwing of the metaphorical cosmic master switch, a power of light and love will flood through this grid, forging it into a puissant vehicle for the revelation and manifestation of the spirit. And the pattern, of course, is worldwide.
The island of Britain appears to have been particularly favoured with light and power centres. The great temples like Stonehenge, it now seems, were once centres for the earthing of the light. St. Columba was assuredly guided to the Holy Island of Iona, and so too were the followers of St. Cuthbert to Durham and Lindisfarne. St. Michael's Mount is a great power centre, linked with many other Michael shrines, wells, hills and churches.

Britain has now ceased to be an imperial power. Standing between the mighty forces of America and the Soviet Union, she may now have a very special role to play in the spiritual awakening of mankind. Britain led the world in industrialisation. Perhaps she must now take the lead in reversing the damage done by that process. And the inherent genius of the Anglo-Saxon race produced the political forms of democracy and contemporary social orders. Perhaps we must now assume the vanguard in shaping a new society, one in which the powers of the spirit can translate themselves into practical life. As in the pruning of a rose bush, limitation and loss may lead to flowering on another and more significant level.

The greatest and most perplexing truths concerning man's spiritual nature are enshrined in the symbolism of myth and legend. It is therefore appropriate, as this book draws to a close, to introduce a relevant allegory. Since so much of what we have said defies purely rational or intellectual proof, we must develop an intuitive understanding for what underlies the great fables and their expression in artistic form. Here, the most profound clues can often be found, which serve to enhance life's meaning and significance.

The ancient and colourful art of heraldry involved more than the utilitarian function of distinguishing knights in the melee of a tournament. Like all symbols, the figures on heraldic coats-of-arms are repositories of truth and higher energy. On both individual and collective coats-of-arms, therefore, we may regard the two supporting figures – those holding the shield – as the relevant spiritual guides. Thus, the supporters of any people's arms can be seen to reveal something of the nature and spiritual task of a particular group-soul or folk-soul. On Britain's coat-of-arms, the two supporting figures are dexter, a lion rampant, crowned, and sinister, a unicorn. "Sinister", as in French, means the left side, the receptive feminine aspect preservative of life, as opposed to dexter, the active masculine aspect. Imperial Britain epitomised the crowned lion rampant. Now, however, the lion's day has passed. Now the unicorn is in the ascendant. The unicorn is a wonderful creature – a white horse with gazelle's feet and a shining horn on its brow. The horse traditionally symbolises intelligence. The white horse, therefore, is purified intelligence, and the horn rising from the brow symbolises the pineal gland, the third eye, the principle of enlightenment, illumination, initiation and higher knowledge of the spirit. And with its gazelle's feet, the unicorn can trip lightly over the morass of materialism. In legend, the unicorn is the familiar and attendant of a virgin, or priestess. She waits for it, submissively, outside a dark forest, from which the beast emerges to lay its head in her lap. Here, surely, is a magnificent symbol of the Higher Self, called from the realm of mystery to the fructification of the purified soul. If we look at Britain's unicorn, however, we notice that the animal's crown has fallen about its neck. Perhaps Britain's task is now to re crown her unicorn and lead it forth at the advent of the New Age.

In a previous chapter, we stated that we are all involved in a world drama, in which the dragon, the Beast, is fighting furiously against a potential influx of limitless Love and Truth – the power of the Living Christ.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against princi palities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.  - (Ephesians, VI. 12)

The Biblical prophesy applies to us today. Despite decanonisation by Rome, St. George is still our patron saint. In legend, he is really less a dragon-slayer than a dragon-tamer. And the Beast, when overcome, is led through the streets by a virgin. This symbolism is beautifully conveyed by Uccello's painting, which depicts St. George pinning the dragon down with his lance, while the maiden stands meekly by, holding the beast with a silken leash. We may take the dragon to reflect the egoism arising from a materialistic world view. When the St. George in each of us has brought the beast under control, the virgin soul may lead it triumphantly through the marketplace. The allegory, then, embodies the task of modern man – to achieve the evolutionary step from egoism to true community. The unicorn's horn and St. George's lance are essentially the same principle.

As all great mythic figures reflect attributes and qualities of soul, we cannot neglect Arthur, that great enigma of British legend. Arthur too is a servant of the spirit. In legend, he sleeps with his knights beneath the hill, waiting until Britain shall need him again in battle, at which time he will come forth, "conquering and to conquer". Arthur is the champion of true Christianity against the powers of darkness, the traditional "defender of the faith". And for almost a millennium, there has been an obstinate and persistent belief that somehow he will indeed come again. On his tomb a prophetic inscription was carved:

HIC JACET ARTURUS REX QUONDAM REX QUE FUTURUS
Here lies Arthur, the Once and Future King

Arthur, according to Blake, represents Albion, the archetypal quality in Britain's folk-soul. Thus he is a principle of true kingship, and embodies the virtues of justice and freedom. In this capacity, as a mythic figure, he cannot be debased by historical attempts to identify him with a fifth Century chieftain. On the contrary, he is a very real principle pervading the whole of British culture and its history. The "Matter of Britain", the predominant British myth, centres around a Golden Age in which man once lived, and which is destined to come again. In Camelot and the Vision of Albion, Geoffrey Ashe analyses how this conviction runs like a silver thread through centuries of British reform movements. And now the passing of the Dark Age, the Kali Juga, is said in esoteric wisdom to precede the coming of a Golden Age when men will again walk with the beings of the spiritual worlds and find Shambhala, the blessed realm of the etheric.

And Michael and his angels overcame the Beast. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. And cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled.

Michael's warrior representative, Arthur, after his long sojourn in the dark cave – perhaps the collective unconscious of the race – may indeed rise again, with royalty, within our hearts' as champion of the New Age. We all live in a time when allegory speaks directly to us of what is transpiring on the subtler, invisible planes. Truth and the symbol hold good on many levels, and it is our loss if we choose to confine our thinking and interpretation solely to the provable and ponderable mundane – or the pedantic intellectual. So much more exists and calls to us. This is indeed an age of mystery, wonder and hope.

Let us close this book with the Great Invocation, which was Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth, imparted to mankind from a high spiritual source in 1945. It expresses truths common to all the major religions, and is now being used across the world by people of many differing faiths and creeds. It is a prayer which focuses the call for help from man to the Higher Worlds. It admirably expresses the threefold nature of the Unity of Being, whether in man as a creature of thinking, feeling and will, or in a universe shot through with the Trinity of Divine Wisdom, Love and Power:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let Light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let Love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men –
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out.
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Ends:  Go to Thoughts & Writings books index

A Vision of the Aquarian Age Sir George Trevelyan First published in 1977 by Coventure UK and in 1984 by Stillpoint USA This book is out-of-print, available only on this website

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© Copyright Sir George Trevelyan and estate, 1977 and 2001. This book may be downloaded and printed on paper in single copies for personal use and study only, in a spirit of fair play and without financial transaction. .